Free radicals

Unlike many of the consciousness-raising initiatives of the '60s, Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians is still vibrant and relevant today. Few grassroots, nonprofit music organizations last more than a couple of years, much less 40—and that's more than enough reason to celebrate with a series of concerts this weekend.

The myth of the AACM as a dashiki-wearing, fist-raised, free-jazz group still occasionally overwhelms its actual identity. Today, the group includes players ranging from Tortoise's Jeff Parker to Velvet Lounge manager Fred Anderson. Based out of Chicago's South Side, the AACM is defined more by philosophy than its fashion sense. Its mission, the celebration of great black music, enthusiastically interfuses all African-based genres, from hip-hop to reggae to jazz, and the group plays out the results in dozens of configurations throughout the city each week. In addition, the AACM runs its own urban music school, organizes countless performances every year and, most importantly, chooses to make music on a communal scale. Flagship groups like 8 Bold Souls, the New Horizons Ensemble, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and more are proof that the communities within the AACM always supersede the individual members.

Douglas Ewart, the chairman of the AACM and a professor of music history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, bristles at the mention of the word free in conjunction with the organization. "I don't believe in 'free' jazz," Ewart counters. "I don't [even] play jazz. I'm from a heritage that has created thousands of genres. That's why we call it the Great Black Music. We have the church, field hollers, the blues, rhythm & blues, so-called jazz...But free? What's free? We pay a penalty for playing [this]."

Ewart is no stranger to penalties: When he immigrated to Chicago from his birthplace of Kingston, Jamaica, in 1963 at 17, he found his skin color a liability. "Chicago was redneck to the ultimate when I came here," he says. "Mayor [Richard J.] Daley was running things, and I can't tell you how many times I was stopped in Chicago for no reason other than just being black."

But like many young black musicians in Chicago during that time, Ewart soon discovered the Sunday afternoon concerts that people like Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell and Muhal Richard Abrams were performing on the South Side. He signed up for lessons at the AACM school, which helped him develop into the disarming reed player he is today.

The AACM vision, exemplified early on by Jarman's As if It Were the Seasons and Mitchell's Sound, and today with discs by Parker and Ernest Dawkins's New Horizons Ensemble, has given the organization an international reputation it couldn't have achieved on its own. "It's important to realize that you can create longevity if you create a communal identity," Ewart says. "The strongest thing about the AACM is coexistence. It's a better word than tolerance. Even though we may not agree with you, people here really have a true democracy in allowing people to speak their mind and play whatever they want to."

"When the AACM was starting, the clubs wanted you to play a certain way," says Nicole Mitchell, the AACM's vice chairwoman, of the then-as-now bebop status quo. Mitchell leads the AACM's sprawling Black Earth Ensemble in addition to being Chicago's premier jazz flautist. "The AACM was about finding a way to make it possible for these musicians to push themselves [into self-sufficiency]."

That DIY spirit has led Mitchell to start her own record label. She's not alone: Anderson runs his own club, 25-year-old drummer Isaiah Spencer produces hip-hop and Ewart makes his own instruments. "It's about self-determination and about being the pilot of your own ship," Mitchell says. "You're not living some prescribed reality; you're determining the direction that you're going."

But the AACM faces some significant challenges. The group is in a critical transitional period at its 40-year mark, as its founders pass off the necessary chores that many of them have always done, such as grant-writing and publicity, to the younger members. "It's time to pass the mantle not just because of time, but because the AACM needs a new exuberance," says Ewart. The promising younger players realize the group is at a crossroads. "[The younger players] know what this legacy means and what the AACM has stood for over the past 40 years," Spencer says. Another hurdle is the imminent demise of the Velvet Lounge, the famous South Loop club that Anderson runs and one of the only consistent outlets for AACM performers. The gentrifying South Loop will squeeze out the historic club in the coming months, and Anderson and the AACM are trying to raise the $100,000 needed to relocate (online donations are being accepted at www.velvetlounge.net).

Ewart doesn't want support to stop with the Velvet, although he does acknowledge that it must be dealt with first. Throughout his tenure, he's been pushing for a permanent space for the organization (the Velvet, on the other hand, will rent from the eventual space it occupies). Back in the '60s, the Abraham Lincoln Center near Pershing and Cottage Grove used to function as a space for classes, performances and office work. Ewart sees reclaiming that or another space as the "paramount task I would like to see accomplished in the next two years."

Honest and insightful as ever, Ewart is ultimately happy with where the AACM is right now. "When the stuff is in flux, that's when something can happen," he says with confidence. "We survived 40 years, we have 40 possibilities."

The AACM performs Saturday 7 at the Chicago Cultural Center and Sunday 8 at the MCA.